The L.A. Times music blog

Live review: Depeche Mode at the Bowl

August 17, 2009 | 12:06
pm

Stripped-down songs and a bundled up frontman still keep it fresh.

You needn't have read about Dave Gahan's recent illness to know that
something was up with the Depeche Mode frontman Sunday night at the
Hollywood Bowl, where the English electro-pop outfit played the first
of two sold-out shows. After all, Gahan kept his shirt (well, actually
his black leather vest) on for the entire two-hour concert -- quite
possibly an unprecedented event in Depeche Mode’s nearly 30-year history.

Since
launching its current world tour in May, the band has canceled a number
of dates as a result of Gahan's health troubles, which have included a
severe bout of gastroenteritis, a malignant tumor in the singer's
bladder and a torn calf muscle. Last week Depeche Mode called off shows
in Mountain View and Chula Vista after Gahan's doctor advised him to
rest his voice.

At press time, concerts scheduled for later this week in Anaheim and Santa Barbara were still set to go ahead.

Given
those afflictions, you could understand Gahan's desire Sunday to guard
himself against the chilly Los Angeles night. At one point the singer
left the stage and returned wearing a sensible scarf. Yet if his
wardrobe revealed that even rock stars are susceptible to the frailties
of age, Gahan's dancing and especially his microphone twirling -- think
of an Elvis Presley unafraid to embrace his inner disco diva --
suggested otherwise.

The frontman's singing was a somewhat
different matter. More than once he ceded control of a selection's
chorus to guitarist Martin Gore or to the audience, which was happy to
take responsibility for its delivery. And a handful of high notes
seemed slightly out of Gahan's reach. But for the most part here was a
man determined not to allow infirmity to prevent him from selling a
song.

Even the new ones: Depeche Mode is on tour in support of “Sounds of the Universe,”
the studio disc it released earlier this year, and though Sunday's show
featured the usual cavalcade of catalog hits, it also pulled
surprisingly heavily from the new album, the band's strongest since the
early '90s.

Indeed, Gahan and his bandmates opened with three
tracks from "Sounds of the Universe," including "Hole to Feed," which
reflected their still-sharp ability to build spirited dance music
around thoroughly dismal themes. "This world could leave you broken
inside, with nowhere to hide," Gahan crooned dramatically over a
percolating industrial-rock beat.

Older material sounded fresher
than you might have expected, in most cases as a result of the group's
stripping down the songs to their essential parts. "Policy of Truth"
zipped along atop a lean New Wave groove, while "Enjoy the Silence" had
a raw disco-punk throb that demonstrated the enormous influence Depeche
Mode has had on younger bands like the Rapture and Interpol.

For
"I Feel You" and "Personal Jesus," Gore drew fuzzy garage-rock tones
from his guitar, emphasizing the juicy contrast between his
instrument's organic intensity and the sleeker surfaces of the group's
computer-music rhythms.

After "Personal Jesus," Depeche Mode
closed the show -- which by then had stretched to a second encore --
with a hushed reading of "Waiting for the Night," from the band's smash
1990 album, "Violator." It was an odd move, following an up-tempo take
on what might be the band's biggest hit with a spacey, low-key ballad,
but hauntingly effective.